Tuesday, 30 December 2014

Business for Scotland and the SNP

"Business for Scotland is an independent and political party neutral business and economic policy think tank and network"- Business for Scotland Website (30/12/2014)

This is a remarkable statement. In August 2014 I wrote

Now obviously Business for Scotland is a non-political organisation - they make that very clear on their website. It's true that one of their founding Directors (Jim Mather) is the former SNP Minister for Enterprise, their CEO (Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp) is a failed SNP local council candidate and the First Minister is fond of using them for photo-opportunities and is attending their annual fund-raising dinner - but I don't think one can necessarily conclude from that that they're some sort of poorly disguised SNP campaigning vehicle designed to give the Independence case a veneer of business credibility. I imagine Ivan McKee of Business for Scotland simply felt he should intervene out a sense of civic duty rather than because somebody suggested he should.

Throughout the campaign they tried to position themselves as politically neutral and many media outlets appeared to swallow that line.

Richard Arkless (member of Business for Scotland who spoke against me at the Business Insider Breakfast indyref debate): approved potential SNP parliamentary candidate

Sarah Jane Walls (Member of business for Scotland who appeared on TV during referendum): was operations manager for Yes Scotland and according to the Herald is an SNP member "who has set her sights on Westminster and is one of a number of candidates in the running to be the party nominee in Stirling" (with some laughable consequences)

Is it just me or is there a trend emerging here? There may well be more, these are examples that have simply washed up in front of me.

Maybe they should update this statement on their website?

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For those who argue they could be party aligned but retain business or economic "think thank" credibility;